Christopher Hitchens at 'The Atlantic'

In his eulogy for Christopher Hitchens here at TheAtlantic.com, literary editor Benjamin Schwarz notes: "Hitch believed that he wrote his finest literary pieces for this magazine -- a fact attested to by the number of his Atlantic pieces that he included in his anthologies." He was also a longtime, engaged friend of the magazine. After he was diagnosed with cancer last year, Hitchens sat down with Jeffrey Goldberg and Martin Amis, talking at length about mortality ("How am I? I'm dying. I mean, everybody is, but I've accelerated the process -- or the process has suddenly accelerated on me. So I'm looking for ways of trying to die more like you, say."); the endurance and adaptability of anti-Semitism, the broader human psychosis it's a part of, and the role of anti-Semitic sentiment in British history and literature; and what he would do to deal with Iran if he were prime minister of Israel.

Here's the video:

Previously at The Atlantic:

• When his best-selling anti-theist book, God Is Not Great, came out, Hitch spoke with senior editor Jennie Rothenberg Gritz about his disdain for religion and his faith in humanity.
• Rothenberg Gritz now shares a never-before-published excerpt from the same interview on what Hitch considered the human need for ritual and ceremony.
• On the publication of Why Orwell Matters, he and Elizabeth Wasserman discussed the tribute to his personal hero, drawing out his portrait of Orwell as a contrarian unmatched in his capacity and intelligence for unflinchingly facing unpleasant truths.
• And Daniel Smith interviewed him, when Love, Poverty, and War came out, about his fierce stances on Iraq, Mother Teresa, and Henry Kissinger.

Today, Goldberg writes, "I don't think he would mind me saying that I thank God for the privilege of having known him." Ta-Nehisi Coates remembers him here; Nicholas Jackson, here; and James Warren, here. Rothenberg Gritz pays tribute to Hitchens's reverence for friendship and awe for his friends here.

David Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media says of Hitchens: "In a profession not always gentle -- and in person -- Christopher was the kindest journalist I've met. He might disagree as to its origin, but goodness was struck through to his center. And, as to his mind, I can see our 1857 founders embracing an intellect as formidable and morally impassioned as their own. We were privileged to publish some share of his work." Our editor James Bennet remarks: "No writer was ever more alive on the page than Christopher Hitchens, and, though I'm certain he'll always read that way, and though he isn't quite done -- he has left behind reviews yet to be published -- it is shocking to contemplate an end to his arguing, if not his arguments. For The Atlantic, it has been a privilege to publish his literary criticism."

See Hitchens's full Atlantic archive here.